Anna Kavan - Guilty

And I remember her smiling at me, so that all my tension relaxed, and I smiled back a completely uncensored smile of pure joy; but then, afraid I might have given away too much by showing her my entirely unguarded face, which I never let anyone see, I looked out at the darkness again.

We arranged to meet again next day and were soon meeting daily, for our relationship advanced without a single setback until, after some weeks, with her mother’s consent, we became engaged.

Perhaps because I’d never really loved, or entirely trusted, anyone before, it continued to seem miraculous to me to have found a person on whose affection and understanding I could always rely and with whom I could share all my thoughts. That first gesture of Carla’s, in throwing a bridge to my isolation, had enabled me to love and be loved, and, gratitude making me all the more dependent, I lived only for her. All my other friends were abandoned without a thought; they just ceased to exist for me. Even Link, who, faithful in his dogged fashion, kept trying to win me back to a more sociable attitude, no longer mattered. Though I was aware of behaving shabbily towards his sister and the family from whom I’d received only kindness, I felt no guilt, for I had no sense of responsibility or obligation except to the girl I loved. With her I was wonderfully happy, living throughout that summer a completely carefree existence. Quite simply, I lost myself in my love and with a luxurious abandonment let everything else go.

An exquisite peace would descend on me as soon as we met, an almost languorous contentment. I’d have liked to stop all the clocks in the world, so that time would stand still. I might have been in a happy trance, and I suppose this was partly why I made no effort to hasten our marriage. But I also felt an instinctive aversion to thinking about the future, as though it were darkened by some obscure foreboding I couldn’t even recognize consciously. My rationalization was that I couldn’t bear to interrupt our present idyllic companionship; I clung to the carefree serenity of those long summer evenings, which gained a dream-like quality from my knowledge of their impermanence. It was true enough that I dreaded the end of this blissful interlude, which came about so suddenly that I can recall it with extraordinary clarity.

I was in my flat, waiting for Carla at the open window, high above the town. Slanting sunshine was still warm on my face and hands, sunshine still gilded the rooftops and craggy ruins that reached my level, while in the street below dusk was already coagulating, where homebound crowds surged in every direction, like disturbed insects, in seemingly senseless haste. The obvious symbolism of the scene pleased me, the scurrying anonymous people down there in the shadow of darkness, while I was up here in the light. I’d been one of the crowd once, and if I liked I could be one of them again. For the present, I’d withdrawn of my own free will to my gilded tower. For the first time, I felt confident and in control of my life.

But my sense of power was short-lived, vanishing as I realized Carla had raised me up and that, but for her, I should still be priding myself on being just like everyone else. Only a second ago I’d considered the possibility of reverting to what I had been … Suddenly I frowned and began to pace the room, unable to avoid the suspicion that I was trying to enjoy both my love affair and my freedom at the same time. This would explain my unwillingness to think of the future and the fact that I never pressed Carla to fix a date for our marriage. Horrible as it was, I couldn’t escape the idea that I’d been using my happy entranced state to hide a selfish reluctance to commit myself finally to married life; hating myself for it, I continued to prowl up and down till Carla arrived.

She had barely come into the room, I could barely wait to embrace her, before I begged her to marry me as soon as possible. She looked at me in surprise, smiling at my feverish urgency. Why this sudden tremendous rush? she wanted to know; weren’t we quite all right as we were? Her smiling questions, counter-checking my deadly seriousness, suggested a lack of enthusiasm on her part, which at once alarmed me. Perhaps she’d been hurt by my dilatoriness as a lover. Perhaps she was getting tired of me altogether. Increasingly agitated, I implored her still more insistently to decide on a date, finally declaring I’d get a special licence so that we could be married tomorrow.

‘And where shall we live? Here?’

Of course, I hadn’t overlooked this important point, but I hadn’t exactly considered it either, merely assuming that some suitable arrangement could be made without too much difficulty, since we were both the lucky possessors of homes. Now, with an ominous sense of approaching an obstacle I knew had been there all along, my memory began to throw off the oblivion I’d imposed upon it. Against my will and with a sinking heart, I recalled Spector’s words — almost the last he had spoken to me — as well as his earlier stipulation. I told myself that neither he nor the authorities could object to my sharing the flat with my wife; yet I was as certain as I’d ever been of anything that, if I were to ask permission for Carla to live here with me after our marriage, it would be refused. How this certainty arose I can’t explain; but it was positive enough to make me reply rather hopelessly, ‘No, I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question.’

Thanks to her, I’d gained confidence. I’d thought myself independent of the man who was at once my landlord, employer and oldest friend. But that her influence hadn’t entirely freed me from his power now became clear, when her puzzled look reminded me of how little I’d told her about him. Of course, I’d often mentioned him and outlined the events in my life in which he’d played a part. Several times I’d been on the verge of describing my relations with him more fully, but, for some unknown reason, I’d always refrained at the last moment. Now I saw I’d be obliged to go into details when she said, ‘If he lets you live here, why not both of us? Surely, he would, in the circumstances?’

Her beautiful candid eyes were looking straight into mine. Suddenly I was ashamed of my secretiveness, unable to understand why I’d deliberately concealed from her Spector’s peculiar hold over me. Taking her hand between both of mine, I told her what he had said; continuing with the whole story, emphasizing his influence on my childhood, the sense I’d once had of being dedicated to him, and my ambivalent attitude towards him that sometimes attracted, sometimes repelled.

In my eagerness to compensate for my earlier secretiveness, I poured out all at once a confusing mass of information that should have emerged bit by bit, at different times, as it fitted naturally into our talk. I complicated it, too, by all sorts of incidents dragged in, regardless of relevance, in the hope of making the picture comprehensive — comprehensible it couldn’t have been. It must have sounded like a confession.

I was still holding her hand. I think its inertness was my first indication that I was failing — as I’d failed once before with a different person — to convey the perhaps incommunicable nature of my relationship with this man. But I went on talking, unable to believe she wouldn’t suddenly know just what I meant, for she’d always understood me so perfectly.

It was only when lines appeared on her white smooth forehead that I became silent, hating to see her perplexed or troubled. However, they must have been lines of vexation, for she withdrew her hand and, with a certain coldness that matched the gesture, said, ‘I’d no idea you were so dominated by Spector. Why didn’t you tell me all this before? You ought to see him again and try to make friends.’ I wanted to interrupt, to tell her she alone was important to me these days, but, mistaking my intention, she hurried on. ‘No, not only because of the flat but because it’s obvious that you won’t be happy till you’re on good terms with him.’